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Electric dreams : computers in American culture

Turns to the past to trace the cultural history of computers. The author charts the struggles to define the meanings of these machines over more than a century, from the failure of Charles Babbage's "difference engine" in the 19th century to struggles over file swapping, open source software, and the future of online journalism.Read more...

Reviews

Editorial reviews

Publisher Synopsis

"Electric Dreams is at once a synthetic history of the personal computer, a history of representations of the computer, and a treatise on how to think about computing as a cultural phenomenon. Friedman's original analyses and clear style make the book a pleasure to read." - Jonathan Sterne, author of The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction"Read more...